Downtown North Platte was alive with the colors and chrome of more than 250 classic and street rod cars Saturday. The Colonel Cody Cruise car show filled the bricks on Dewey and spilled onto Fifth and Sixth streets.

Thousands turned out to stroll the bricks and look over the fine machines on display.

Trent Lindstedt of North Platte belongs to a club called the Great Plains F100 Club, based in Omaha, with members in several states. Five members each had a truck in the show.

Their club motto is “We Are Driven” and by that, they mean they don’t use trailers to haul their trucks, they drive them to shows all over the country.

According to Lindstedt, at least seven states were represented at this year’s Col. Cody show. The types of vehicles ranged from mild and quiet to low and fast, as well as some that looked like they could climb boulders.

One of the most radical was a 1956 Volkswagen owned by Dan Troyer of North Platte, which he is converting to a V8 powered street rod.

Troyer said he has about a year of work ahead of him before it's complete. Powered by a Corvette LS3 engine, the Bug has been radically chopped and sits on a full race frame. Troyer plans to make it street-legal and intends to run it at the Sandhills Road Race near Arnold when it’s finished.

North Platte Community College instructor Don Wilson turned the drum as raffle tickets were separated and dropped, and college President Ryan Purdy drew the winner of the Green 1962 Chevy Nova built by students at the college.

Tony Weidner of Grand Island was the lucky ticket holder. He was at a tennis tournament at Cody Park when his ticket was drawn and found out about winning via phone calls from people at the car show. Weidner buys tickets every year for the car raffle. He was thrilled by winning and he said he even loves the color.

Purdy said 5,800 tickets were sold by drawing time, netting $58,000, enough money to pay for the car project and plus nearly $25,000 for scholarships in auto body and mechanic programs at Mid Plains.

The raffle has been held for eight years and this year the most tickets ever were sold.

Purdy said he didn't mind that the winnner was playing tennis.

“Only three times, has the raffle winner been at the car show for the drawing,” he said.